Reviewing the site

The backfill looks great - a little high on the North side, by design, as we couldn't get too much compacting done there.  We'll have the sanitary guys in tomorrow to do the sewer and water lines, and Alveiro will hopefully come in to work on some drains and the garage.

Backfill almost complete

From almost getting nothing done, to getting almost everything done - today was a whirlwind.  Up at the crack of dawn, I had Manuel's guy put some bracing on the South wall as Horatio wanted to bring in some heavier equipment.  The small bobcat was not working well on the still very wet ground between the foundation and the neighbour to the South.  The solution?  A quick call for some recycled gravel.

We took off 2 feet of mud then had some gravel shot up the side of the house (what a great job that guy has - stands around with a remote control shooting gravel all over the place).  One hour later, and Horatio was whistling away while working in the hole of the former walkout.  By end of day, they'd finished 90% of the backfill.  A great day!

Machines

Lots of machines here today. Still having trouble with access on south so we've ordered some stone to "pave" the way to the back.

Wet mess

The rain has created a really wet, sticky mess.  The mud is unbelievable and has really slowed down the backfill.  Horatio has had to bring his back how over to try and move the top layer of mud a bit to put some dry earth on top, otherwise the going is too tough with the small bobcat.

Sam is onsite doing a lot of cleanup and prep of the inside of the house to prepare for arrival of stone and more hay to protect the footings (probably next week).

Tony was in to partially fix the electrical conduit on the neighbours side (it will be completely fixed when the backfill is done) and hopefully Pinewood will come by to reattach the gas line for the neighbours pool heater.

Rainy day again??

Who would have planned for 36 hours of rain in mid-December (and a high of 16 degrees).  There's no climate change going on here!  So this fine weather is holding back our backfill progress another day, but we should be done by Saturday.  The pool guys have said they're going to be putting the liner and water in today - that will be very messy work, but I guess the appeal of the warm temperatures is outweighing the damp and muddy conditions.  Good luck to them! 

Backfill Continues

We've completed the front and are working on the sides.  I'm just not comfortable, given the tightness on the side and the reaction from the neighbours on the excavation caving in a bit, with using the larger bobcat as per usual.  We've decided to rent a smaller bobcat (3 foot).  It will take more labour effort, but be much safer and respectful of the neighbours space.

Backfill

Backfilling started this morning - awesome.  Although, we're looking at another rainy forecast for this afternoon and tomorrow.  Hopefully we can get the south side done, but it's 50/50 at this point.

Inspection Passed

So the inspector was early again, and I wasn't there... luckily my carpenter was there and he passed the inspection.  These guys are very hard to nail down - I begged him to come today, even though I had booked the appointment last week, but because he just got back from vacation, it wasn't on his to-do list.  So he said he's "squeeze it in" to the end of the day (which ends at 3:30!) and meet me there at 3:15.  I get a call at 2:45 from my carpenter who was just passing by and said the inspector was looking for me (guess he didn't have my phone number, email address etc!).  Wow, frustrating!  But, another milestone passed and we're ready to backfill.

Waterproofing complete

The stone has been spread around the base of the house and the weeping tile pipe beneath the windows on the South side have been hung (see second picture), so we're just waiting for the inspector to approve.  Hopefully we'll be backfilling tomorrow morning!

Digging out from the mess

The mess from the rain was bigger than I thought.  It doesn't look like much when you're 30 feet away - put try putting a shovel in it - lots of earth.  So we have to get Elephant to come back tomorrow to move all of the collapsed sides out of the way.  The ever-shifting plan is to get the surveyor today (hopefully he doesn't freak out at the lack of clean lines), Elephant tomorrow morning, carpentry for the footings tomorrow afternoon, and rabar/inspection/pour on Friday morning.

Quick sand

The base of the excavation is remarkably stable, given how unstable the top 4 feet of soil is.  However, when we started to dig out the extra depth for the walkout footings, we came into some wet, soft soil.  We'll have to make a decision on how to proceed, because this is very tenuous ground for solid footings.

A new window?

The ground is very unstable, particularly on the South side.  We had to remove 2 sections of fence and put up a temporary fence behind.  Argh.

Water

We hit water while digging the deep walkout footing section (4 feet deeper than the basement floor).  I was actually surprised it took this long - other projects in the area have been known to get water at 6 feet.  So hitting it at 10 feet was not altogether unexpected.  We'll have to get a pump in for a few days to take care of the water.

Excavation gets to floor level

Keep digging!

The dig continues today - now we're getting down to the finer points of getting the boundaries and depth correct.  We should be done by end of day today, if not tomorrow morning.

Dig

Foundation removal

We're making great progress on removing the existing foundation.  The surveyor is coming by tomorrow (late morning) to mark for the foundation dig.

Stone and block

Stone, brick, block, slab and rocks - that's what's being removed now.  They probably have 3-4 truck-loads of stuff to dispose of.  Hopefully 90% of it will be cleaned out today.

Managed chaos this morning

It was one of those mornings, when two trades were bumping into each other a bit.  I try to avoid this at all costs usually, but in this case, I had to get the pool guys to get their materials into the backyard before it became inaccessible due to the excavation.

When a conflict is going to happen, I make sure I'm on site.  It's much easier for someone to get mad if you're not there.  After some initial heated discussion, we worked everything out nicely, and now we have all of the pool stuff in the back and the demolition can continue.  

Back to the pool

Managing the site has been a big balancing act between the pool and the house!  Today, the pool guys were to finish their work on excavation, so the demo guys couldn't work.